Issue - meetings

To consider a joint report of the Borough Treasurer and Head of Assets (Cheshire East) and the Director of Resources (Cheshire West and Chester) on the current position of the shared service arrangements between Cheshire East and Cheshire West and Chester Councils. 

Members considered a report summarising the current position of the shared service arrangements between Cheshire East (CE) and Cheshire West and Chester Councils (CWAC).  In particular, the report highlighted those short term shared services that had recently disaggregated to enable a transition to separate delivery arrangements in each Council.

A number of shared services had committed to undertaking strategic reviews to determine the most appropriate delivery model for the future in their business plans.

An overview providing a current position statement on each shared service was contained in Appendix 1 to the report.

The Archaeology Planning and Advisory Shared Service had been due to disaggregate in favour of a Service Level Agreement between CWAC (the provider) and CE (the client). However, during negotiations consideration was given to an improved sharing arrangement. It was envisaged that this would be in place by the end of June 2010 but given the added complexity of the new arrangements and the time taken to formalise the arrangements, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Joint Committee were requested to agree a short extension until the end of July to enable the legal process to be completed. At the meeting, Members were updated on the proposed arrangements and agreed that the revised legal documentation be finalised by Legal Officers as appropriate.

During 2010-11 the transition of the following short-term shared services had been completed with activity disaggregating to CE and CWAC:

Commissioned Community Equipment Shared Service

Children’s Centre Programme Management

Emergency Duty Team

The Libraries Support shared service provided specialist and business support functions to support libraries and customers. One of the service’s key objectives was to co-locate its activity to a single site with a view to securing economies of scale and further efficiencies. In order to identify these savings and decide the future shape of the shared service, the Shared Service Manager was proposing to undertake a service review as soon as the co-location project had been completed. It had been suggested that there may be benefit in involving the Joint Committee in the review process

RESOLVED

That

(1)   the overall position statement relating to current shared service arrangements be noted;

(2)   the following Shared Services Agreements be terminated based on the information supplied in the relevant Transition Log:

Commissioned Community Equipment Shared Service

Children’s Centre Programme Management

(3)   the Emergency Duty Team Transition Log be endorsed subject to an outstanding recruitment issue and final sign-off be delegated to the Joint Officer Board;

(4)   the long term extension of the Archaeology Shared Service agreement be approved on the basis of the update provided at the meeting and the agreement be signed accordingly; and

(5)   the opportunity for Members to be actively involved in a planned review of the Libraries Support Shared Service be welcomed and in this respect Councillors David Brown and Stuart Parker be invited to participate in the review.